A blog from the team at HqO with resources designed to help landlords optimize their property and create a workspace that tenants will love.

In case you missed it earlier this week, our software is powering the new tenant experience app at Willis Tower, which is owned by Blackstone's EQ Office. Up until launch this week, our team has been working hard behind the scenes with EQ Office, customizing our tenant experience software for one of the tallest buildings in the world – a Class A office tower with 3.8 million square feet of rentable space and more than 12,000 occupants.

The benefit of tenant experience (TeX) software seems straightforward on the surface: with TeX software in place, commercial real estate owners can offer the end users of their property -- the entire tenant population -- a delightful tech-enabled workplace experience. An experience that most consumers have come to expect, via the mobile device they carry with them everywhere they go.

This year, we've done our fair share of traveling around the country to various conferences and events, telling attendees all about the importance of tenant experience software in commercial real estate. One constant conference for us was CREtech – we followed Michael Beckerman and his team around, from Boston, to Chicago, to LA, to San Francisco, and just last week, to New York City. We enjoyed a years worth of content and panels, shook a bunch of hands, and witnessed the increase of tech momentum in commercial real estate with each event.

Commercial real estate has been notoriously slow to adopt technology, but for the first time for many CRE practitioners, they are seriously considering building tech & software into this year's budget. Various market forces are forcing CRE to consider tech. Those who see property as a capital asset are cautious of slowdowns in overall economic growth and a coming markets correction. This caution has led to CRE's growing interest in tech investments that will improve efficiencies, increase data transparency, automate operations and building functions, and improve the experience for their customers – the tenant.

Innovation is prevalent in real estate and certain owners and operators are taking a first-mover approach to adopting technology that will improve their property operations and tenant experience. With so many different technologies to consider in 2019 (and beyond), it's very easy to get overwhelmed, or to want to sit back and watch what others do first in the space.

NYC Real Estate Tech Week is wrapping up, and what a week it's been. Close to 3,000 attendees and 200 tech startups packed into numerous conferences, panels, expos, and networking events across the city. It's an impressive consortium as is, and given how much the industry is poised to grow over the next 12 months, 2019 should be even more impressive. It has been called the "Davos of Real Estate Tech" after all.

Our team has officially set up shop at the ULI Fall Conference in Boston this week. We sponsored a special little area on the first floor of the Boston Convention and Expo Center directly in front of a row of meeting rooms where some of the best educational sessions are taking place.

A quick Google image search of "CRE tech landscape" turns up some pretty disappointing results, in my humble opinion. Don't get me wrong, I'm pumped to see various organizations mapping out the tech ecosystem as it relates to commercial real estate, but...

We frequently discuss and debate with our landlord partners the importance of office amenities and the overall value of creating a positive office UX for tenant engagement and retention. So, of course, we have heard and seen it all when it comes to amenities.

A recent study from Colliers International recommends that commercial office owners should, as a baseline, allocate approximately 10% of their rentable square footage to amenities. For those who are trying to attract highly south-after tenants, they should reserve 12% or more.